04.11.01
Wednesday, April 11, 2001 -- 5 p.m. CDT
Mission Control Center, Houston, Texas
STATUS REPORT: ISS01-10
INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION STATUS REPORT #01-10
The International Space Station’s Expedition Two Crew spent this
week loading the Progress supply craft with trash and unneeded items
in preparation for its undocking next week to clear the aft port on
the Zvezda module for the relocation of the Soyuz capsule. This air
traffic control activity clears the way for the arrival next week of
Space Shuttle Endeavour and the STS-100 crew delivering the Canadian
built station robot arm and another high tech moving van full of
supplies.
Remaining fuel and oxidizer from the Progress vehicle was transferred
into tanks on the Russian Zvezda module yesterday and today, and
plans call for final fuel and oxidizer transfer to the Zarya module
tomorrow and Friday. The Progress engines were fired earlier this
week in a small reboost maneuver that verified for the first time a
command link of the thrusters through the Zvezda module’s
computer.
The Progress is scheduled to be remotely undocked from Zvezda’s
aft docking port about 3:30 a.m. CDT Monday after which it will be
deorbited to burn up harmlessly in the Earth’s atmosphere. The
relocation of the Soyuz spacecraft that delivered the first
expedition crew to the station is planned for 7:30 a.m. April 18. The
35 minute procedure calls for the three crewmembers to climb aboard
the Soyuz, undock from a docking port on Zarya and fly-around to the
aft docking location on Zvezda. This will provide the necessary
clearance for the Raffaello Multi Purpose Logistics Module’s
(MPLM) attachment to the Unity module’s nadir port during
STS-100.
The resident crew of the International Space Station – Commander
Yury Usachev and Flight Engineers Jim Voss and Susan Helms – is
nearing the end of its first month aboard the complex, having begun
its increment work on March 18.
The activation of the station’s Ku-Band communication system is
essentially complete and several television downlinks this week have
shown the crew in its daily routine of experimenting, housekeeping
and maintenance aboard the station. One of the major tasks
accomplished is a complete checkout of two Robotic Work Stations,
which will serve as the command and control locations for the station
Remote Manipulator System, known as Canadarm2.
The high-tech robot arm and the second Italian Space Agency-built MPLM
are the major cargo aboard Endeavour. The seven-person crew will fly
to Florida Monday morning for the final three days of the countdown
to launch. The countdown is set to begin at 5 p.m. CDT Monday leading
toward liftoff at 1:41 p.m. CDT April 19. An on time launch will see
Endeavour dock to the station at about 8:36 a.m. CDT April 21.
In and around preparations for the Progress departure, the Soyuz
fly-around and upcoming shuttle arrival, the Expedition crew
continues to conduct science investigations aboard the ISS. With the
station’s Ku-band television system working, experimenters are
working to activate the Human Research Facility (HRF) rack in the
Destiny Laboratory and are preparing for the arrival of new racks of
experiments on the upcoming shuttle visit. The HRF is managed and
operated by a team in the Telescience Support Center at the Johnson
Space Center. All station payloads are overseen from NASA’s
Payloads Operations Center in Huntsville, Alabama. For details on the
science investigations ongoing aboard the ISS, visit the following
website:
http://www.scipoc.msfc.nasa.gov
The International Space Station continues to orbit the Earth in good
shape at an altitude of 240 statute miles (386 km). The next ISS
Status Report will be issued following Endeavour’s mission,
unless developments warrant. Until that time, station updates will be
provided in the twice daily shuttle status reports.
-end-